Scheduling Strategy for Lots of Group Boards

Pinterest group boards become addictive… before you know it you are a contributor to 80 group boards and the prospect of pinning to them all is daunting. I rarely turn down the offer of a new group board to join because I don’t know how it will grow and what I might want it for in the future. However, coming up with a Tailwind scheduling strategy for lots of group boards has taken a little trial and error… today I’m passing on my successful strategy.

THIS POST MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS. PLEASE READ MY DISCLOSURE FOR MORE INFO.

If Your’s New to Tailwind…

Tailwind is a clever little app that allows you to schedule your pins throughout the day. You can put in a little time when you have the time, and schedule pins for weeks in advance. Your Pinterest account will be drip fed pins at your chosen times, while you get on with the rest of your life. It analyzes your pins and boards to help you understand what’s going down well with your followers, and the ‘Tribes‘ feature allows you to share pins with other bloggers and pinners on a pin-for-pin basis. It’s pretty genius and they do a free trial so get involved!

Scheduling Strategy for Lots of Group Boards

I spent a lot of time Googling and searching Pinterest for the very phrase above before tackling this myself. My family lifestyle blog is contributing to over 80 group boards, and it can be overwhelming. After experimenting, I now spend 1-2hrs a week analyzing and scheduling my group boards… it’s easy and my profile ‘pins’ tab doesn’t look like this:

Decluttering tips anyone?

If someone comes across one of my pins and decides to check out my profile, unless they REALLY want to read about decluttering, I suspect they are not going to follow me. It looks spammy to potential new followers and it could look spammy to Pinterest too. Considering Pinterest are ultimately in control of the organic reach of my pins, I want to keep Pinterest happy!

Step 1: Find your Best Performing Group Boards

I used to pin to nearly every one of my 80 group boards every day… yes, I’ve tried it, and I assure you I got no more traffic pinning 160 times a day than I did pinning 60 times a day. A healthy Pinterest account should remain active, pinning multiple times a day, but 60 is plenty to bring regular traffic to your site. The first task in a solid scheduling strategy for lots of group boards is to hone in on which boards are working for you.

I’m not suggesting you dump any of your group boards. Be a member of many and once a month analyze which ones are doing well. Your most valuable boards will change as boards grow and change, so it’s worth revisiting your analytics to get the latest data. I actively pin to 35 group boards, picked based on these Tailwind Board Insights:

Virarity Score – A higher score means your pin is more likely to be repined.

Engagement Score – This is where your smaller boards might surprise you… It takes into account the number of repins per pin, per follower. i.e. A high score means the people following that board are repinning a lot!

My list of boards organized by ‘Repins’ (spot the green highlight).

By clicking the word ‘Total‘ under each column, you list will be reorganized into descending order, allowing you to make a list of your most valuable boards.

Step 2: Make Multiple Tailwind ‘Board Lists’ Containing Only Five Boards Each

Many Pinterest tutorials tell you to make Tailwind lists based on niche, and this is a great strategy. However, if you are a contributor to 50+ general topic/blogger boards like I am, you’re going to end up with a wall of matching pins in your profile like the above screenshot.

Instead, make multiple lists containing five boards each. I have three ‘general’ lists, and four other lists which are specific to niche. I have found by experience and by studying my analytics that the more specific niche group boards tend to result in more repins.

Step 3: Find your Best Performing Pins

My traffic from Pinterest took a leap when I realized that I need to stop pinning what I want people to like and instead pin what they actually like. One of my newly trending pins is a complete surprise, it’s a relatively short, quickly thrown together post about ‘the need for minimalism’. Something about the title or the image is resonating with people. So a successful scheduling strategy for lots of group boards will be streamlined to pins that are most likely to get repined or clicked.

You’ll know from your Jetpack/Google analytics which posts are doing well, but you may be surprised when you find out which pins are sending the traffic. My most popular post ‘How to Create the Ultimate Playroom‘ is often reached through a pinned image from the post… not my original title pin. There are two places to check for your most valuable pins:

Tailwind Pin Inspector – This will show your most repinned posts… more reins, bigger audience. Go to Optimize Content -> Pin Inspector. In the filter bar at the top choose ‘From My Website‘ and you will see a list of your most repinned pins.

Google Analytics – This will show your most popular posts on Pinterest, pin what people are interested in! Go to Acquisition -> Social -> Network Referrals. Click on ‘Pinterest’ in the list on the right and you will be shown your most popular posts.

Pinterest Analytics – This can tell you which exact pins are being clicked… more clicks, more traffic. Go to Analytics -> Website (on drop down menu) -> Clicks (navigation bar) and you will find the best performing pins linking to your website.

Both the pins shown link to the same post… the image is more popular!

Step 4: Schedule Your Pins Like a Pro

Because you will be want to repeatedly find the same pins, it’s worth making a new board containing just these pins. I repin 14 pins a week to most group boards (two a day) so you going to want at least that number in your new board. Once you’ve created and filled this board appropriately (I tend to include a few brand new pins to test out too):

Use the Tailwind browser extension button to select all the pins at once,

Choose ‘Save for Later‘ (not schedule now),

From Tailwind -> Drafts,

Assign a list (only one list at a time) by adding to the ‘Board Name‘ box,

For each pin click the little clock on the bottom right of the pin and assign a date (I pin two per day),

Choose a interval to space them (I tend to go for 2hrs),

Choose to ‘optimize‘ to allow Tailwind to pick the best slot.

Click ‘Schedule All‘.

The pins should space out into your schedule, instead of creating a wall of the same pin. This process can then be repeated for each list and Tailwind will not put the pins in the exact same order so the gaps in your schedule will be filled with varying pins.

I can hear some of your screaming “But there’s a shuffle button!” but I have a problem with shuffle… this will mix up the whole list, so you don’t have control over how many pins are sent to each board per day and it won’t optimize your own pins over other people’s which you will pin in-between to fill the gaps.

If you want to try the shuffle method, just add all the lists at once and hit schedule without changing any dates. Press shuffle and see what you think, you can always delete your schedule if you don’t like what Tailwind comes up with! I’d love to know what you think about my scheduling strategy for lots of group boards, do give it a test run and let me know!